Rainy days and Mondays

It’s Monday evening and my husband says, “You’re in a mood, today. You know that right?”

I nod, and take another bite of cold salad.

“Is it the rain?”

I pause to hear the drumbeat of water falling from the sky. This is not the patter of little feet dancing on my roof.

“We need the rain,” I sigh. “But I miss the sun.”

The sun: that giant, fireball that emanates warmth, and light, and draws my eyes upward to celestial heights.  I know the sun’s still there if I could just fly above the gray clouds that hang over me like a heavy tarp.

When I’m in a melancholy mood, I browse through my spiritual journals, hoping for previous insights or a spark to fan the embers. On this particular January day, several years ago, I’d written in my God Calling journal, “Today is gray and cold. I lack joy and feel indifferent towards the Lord.”

The enemy loves to use January weather to derail me.

In that same journal, I’d underlined a sentence, “You must say ‘Thank You’ on the grayest days. You must do it. All cannot be light unless you do. There is gray-day practice. It is absolutely necessary.”

There’s the formula to an improved mood. Did it work?

I turn the page where I’d written about an awesome worship time with the Lord, and the verse. “He who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

I scan scribbled words, written from a heart anchored to God in the storm, “We are on a life journey which consists of hills and valleys where our vision is limited. We can’t know what’s coming around the bend. So we take one step at a time, knowing He is with us, and “walk by faith and not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7 NAS)

I close the journal, my scrapbook of heartaches and joy-filled God moments. I’m not sure what plagued my soul back then. Perhaps it was the rain. But I know how I escaped the pit of indifference and despair.

I sought the Lord even when I wasn’t in the mood. I praised His name and said ‘Thank you’ even when I didn’t feel grateful.

“I am your God. Your Great Reward. Yours to look up and say, ‘All is well.’”

And so He is, and my soul is well, even in this…..

Rainy days and Mondays.

Author: Karen Foster

I'd like to say I've changed, but after decades of living, I still have the same four passions. My relationship with Jesus, spending time with family, attending live theater, and writing devotions & first-person stories about a loving, faithful God who reveals Himself in our every day circumstances. View all posts by Karen Foster